DELHI: The controversial Hindu nationalist politician Narendra Modi has burnished his credentials as a possible future prime minister of India with a solid showing in the regional poll in his home state of Gujarat.

Mr Modi won a fourth term as chief minister of the prosperous, industrial western province, although his Bharatiya Janata Party won fewer seats than many had predicted, and two fewer - 115 - than in the last election.

The win was convincing - the BJP needed 92 seats for a majority, and Congress, its main rival at the national level, won only 61, but many analysts had forecast up to 130 seats for Mr Modi.

It was claimed that a landslide victory would establish him as the frontrunner to lead the BJP in the 2014 national elections.

Many were convinced regardless of the result.

As news of the BJP's victory spread, supporters in Gujarat's capital, Ahmedabad, took to the streets chanting: "Today, the chief minister, 2014, the prime minister.''

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"Modi has proven that he has the ability to showcase himself as a prime ministerial candidate," an economics professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Sebastian Morris, said. "Congress will have to work hard to check his increasing clout."

Others urged caution.

"Big success in one state does not mean that the party is ready to put Modi centre stage," Pralay Kanungo from the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University said. There were signs on Thursday that Mr Modi might already have his eye on the national stage. He gave his victory speech in Hindi rather than the local Gujarati language and, unusually at a moment of triumph, sought absolution for past errors.

"If I have made mistakes I ask my six crore [60 million] Gujarati brothers and sisters for forgiveness," he said to the crowd.

To a national audience, it was an unmistakeable reference to the Gujarat riots in 2002.

The riots and Mr Modi's role in them made him a hugely divisive figure across India.

He had just taken the chief minister's seat when a train carrying Hindu pilgrims was burnt by a Muslim mob in Godhra in February 2002, sparking anti-Muslim riots that raged for months across Gujarat.

More than 1000 people were killed and Mr Modi's government was accused of actively fomenting the violence of Hindu vigilantes.

He has always denied the allegations and none have ever been proven against him. His Hindu nationalist support base say he is a defender of their religious rights, but Muslims and other religious minorities fear a Modi-led government in New Delhi.

Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and Congress's likely prime ministerial candidate, was not as large a presence as predicted in the Gujarat poll. While he reportedly kept a forensic eye on polling data, he kept a low profile, given Mr Modi's unshakeable local popularity.

In the mountainous northern state of Himachal Pradesh, Congress won 36 seats to the BJP's 26 and will form government.